Jammu and Kashmir, Dubai Ports sign MoU for developing inland hubs

The Jammu and Kashmir government and
Dubai Ports Group have reportedly signed an agreement for a joint venture
involving Rs 1,500 crore foreign direct investment for setting up inland
logistic hubs in Jammu and Srinagar capital cities.

The agreement was finalised at the
delegation level talks between Dubai Ports Group (DP World) Chairman Sultan
Ahmed Bin Sulayem -led DP team and Jammu and Kashmir Finance Minister Haseeb
Drabu-led state government team, informed an official spokesman.

According to media report, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and his team held separate
meetings with Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu and Industries Minister Chander
Parkash Ganga, followed by delegation level parleys with the concerned
ministers and officials.

Commerce Minister Chander Parkash Ganga, Principal Secretary Finance, Navin
Kumar Choudhary, Principal Secretary Industries, Shailendra Kumar and other
officials of the concerned departments were present at the delegation-level
meeting, which deliberated in detail on the parameters of the MoU.

The MoU is to be subsequently signed by the Government of India with the
Government of UAE to facilitate setting up the first inland logistics hub in
Jammu and Kashmir.

To begin with, 100 acres of land would be offered by the state
government near Railway Station Samba as equity in the joint venture for
setting up the logistics hub in Jammu region and around 100 acres of land would
be earmarked near Ompora, Budgam for a similar facility in Kashmir, the
spokesman said. .

The logistics
hub will include two dry ports,
warehouses, cold storage chain, controlled atmospheric stores and supply chain
to transport commodities and products including horticulture and agriculture
produce, handicrafts and industrial products from the state directly to the
markets throughout the world.

This facility will reduce the high cost of transportation of goods and
products since they have to get almost everything in trucks from outside world.

"If we get a dry port and cold chain, the
commodities can move through an integrated transport chain. This will bring
down the cost of transportation by 20 per cent to 25 per cent giving a major
fillip to the state economy," said Drabu.

He said a dry port, also called an inland port
or multimodal logistics centre, is an inland terminal connected to a seaport by
rail or road.

It serves as trans-shipment point in transport
of export/import goods and is named so because it is very similar to a seaport
in services it offers except that it is not near a sea.

Dubai Ports is operating 78 marine and inland
terminals supported by over 50 related businesses in 40 countries across six
continents with a significant presence in both high-growth and mature
markets.